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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

My kGTD setup

Related to today’s earlier post, a number of people have written over the past few weeks with curiosity about kGTD (“Is it worth buying OmniOutliner Pro?” “Is it worth buying a Mac?” “Will I be able to vanquish all foes?”). While I’m not prepared to do a major sales presentation, I am happy to oblige the folks who wanted to see how I’ve set mine up. Also gives you a little window into my current contexts (as well as my atrocious personal habits).

Screenshot here (best viewed full size): comments and questions will be entertained.

My kGTD Setup


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Paul Farnell's picture

Ok basic question perhaps, but...

Ok basic question perhaps, but how did you make it black, with the larger title etc.?

Merlin Mann's picture

You can change the appearance...

You can change the appearance (type, colors, spacing, etc.) of any element in the Styles section. See the little draggy “nipple” at the bottom of the drawer? Drag that up to reveal the style guts. Also CMD-T to bring up your Fonts, and CMD-5 to show the current styling in toto.

One thing: as much as I adore Lucida Grande, it doesn’t do italics very well, so I went with Helvetica for everything.

Peter Parkes's picture

'Update Mint' is always on...

‘Update Mint’ is always on my ‘things to do sometime maybe’, too. If only it could be persuaded to do it by itself…

Merlin Mann's picture

Man, this Mint update looks...

Man, this Mint update looks like a bitch. Must read slowly and not drink beer while updating…

Ethan's picture

That mint update is indeed...

That mint update is indeed bitch-like. It fried my stats on the first try. Backups are nice. Wear gloves. Shut your eyes. Move into the light.

Helvetica, eh? I’ve had rather a number of complaints on the font. Sigh. Maybe time to offer up an alternative. Comic sans is out, I suppose?

Phil Ulrich's picture

Blast you, Merlin, now I'm...

Blast you, Merlin, now I’m going to have to shell out for OOPro. I’m still using the version from back before they split it in two, even!

Merlin Mann's picture

Phil, there's a lot to...

Phil, there’s a lot to like in that app. You can alias files and it handles drag and drop (or paste-in) URLs. Sweet stuff.

Mark Grimes's picture

You remind yourself to do...

You remind yourself to do system backups? What happened to cron, erm launchd? If it’s a laptop I recommend you check out Anacron+launchd. (http://members.cox.net/18james/anacron-tiger.html) Maybe rsync? I recently grabbed a 20g StrongSpace account for offsite rsyncs - highly recommended… now if Apple will just fix the -E bug :) (What I mean is if the data you backup uses resource forks, forget about 10.4.3’s rsync for right now). But I digress…

kGTD sure is nice for what it is (applescripts ontop of a larger scope pricey and hefty application) but is largely something I use to map the feature sets that are most important to me so I can give my GTD a diet and invest in CoreData. But until vaporware materializes that doesn’t require using such a beast to manage lists, I use kGTD for now. Much like Merlin I’ve probably tested all the GTD systems on OSX, except I probably use the systems less then he does because I suffer from the finding-the-one-true-system bug that turns me into an avid GTD evangelist and application tester more then just sitting down and usin GTD (I know, it’s a big no-no) — kGTD is an advanced version of what some of us remember from a third party kludge to HogBay Notebook… I don’t think there is anyway of pleasing everyone all the time short of writing your own.

For people that want to write their own, ADC has a ToDo CoreData sample application on their website. I invite the roll-your-own mac developers to make a custom shoe. Note I’m not advocating the world needs another GTD system — I am simply saying, once you’ve tried them all you’ll likely say wouldn’t it be nice if I had features from X, Y and Z — and there’s only one path to getting what you want (time-willing).

NathanB's picture

Sucks that I can't see...

Sucks that I can’t see the large version unless I have a flickr or yahoo account. Boo Yahoo.

kGTD looks great though.

Mark Grimes's picture

A couple more thoughts... Ajax seems...

A couple more thoughts…

Ajax seems to be where it is at for GTD systems though… I can’t help to feel excited about the Web 2.0 buzz… I don’t really feel that fat client GTD is going to last. Each application requires significant overhead (yours or riding on some other app), even to the point of making sure that kGTD stays with the latest beta of OOPro, which may not be what you want to do if you actually use OOPro for anything else… I still tend to call it bleeding edge GTD where your organization system can come crashing down if OmniGroup has too many beers. Granted it is changing in the future, but who likes to spend $150 on a single use case for OOPro, since you have to pretty much skin your outliner to solely chew on your GTD template.

I am just getting into RoR and setting up a textdrive+typo+apache/lighttpd+mint setup and the more I play with Rails the more I find it to be the ideal place for roll-your-owners to play.

I detract my insinuation of a standalone GTD client in the last comment… I think instead it’s all about xmlrpc clients that hook into webapps with content stored in CoreData… Mmmmm Rails Cocoafication… Ya that’s the ticket.

About Merlin Mann

Merlin Mann's picture

Bio

Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster. He’s best known for being the guy who started the website you’re reading right now. He lives in San Francisco, does lots of public speaking, and helps make cool things like You Look Nice Today. Also? He looks like this, answers questions, and has something like a life.

Merlin’s favorite thing he’s written recently is a short essay called, “Better.”

 
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Inbox Zero

The original 43 Folders series looking at the skills, tools, and attitude needed to empty your email inbox — and then keep it that way. Don’t miss the free video of Merlin’s Inbox Zero presentation.

Making Time

3-part series on attention management for artists and makers. Read Bad Correspondence, The Job You Think You Have, and One Clear Line.